Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman Cover Reveal and Reese Witherspoon

The book cover for Harper Lee’s upcoming novel “Go Set a Watchman” has been revealed. Lee's book will be released this July from HarperCollins.

The book is a follow-up by “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Lee and reportedly centers on now-adult “Mockingbird” protagonist Scout.

“Mockingbird” fans will note that the cover of “Watchman,” which is being released this July, echoes the 50th anniversary “Mockingbird” cover that shows a leafy tree. As you can see, the “Watchman” cover also has a leafy tree standing next to what seems to be train tracks. 

Michael Morrison of HarperCollins explained the presence of the train on the cover in a statement: 

The book begins with Scout's train ride home, but more profoundly, it is about the journey Harper Lee's beloved characters have taken in the subsequent 20 years of their lives.

Actress Reese Witherspoon will soon be bringing to life some of the most beloved characters ever created.

“As a Southerner, it is an honor and privilege to give voice to the Southern characters who inspired my childhood love of reading, Scout and Atticus Finch," Witherspoon said in a statement. "I am eager for readers to be transported to a pivotal time in American history in the manner that only Harper Lee's gorgeous prose can deliver.”

The audiobook will be released at the same time as the print version of “Watchman” – both will come out this July.

Harper Lee's Words to Reporter: 'Go Away!'

Here is a little Saturday morning bit of news about the acclaimed literary recluse, Harper Lee.

Lee, of  To Kill A Mockingbird fame, has been in the spotlight perhaps more than she'd like recently.  Last month, her publisher announced that a prequel to her classic titled Go Set a Watchman will publish later this year.  It is narrated by an adult Scout.

The Alleged Book Cover

 The announcement was a surprise to Lee's fans, as she has stated for decades that she doesn't plan to release another novel.

It also has also spurred a resurgent interest in Lee, who appears to decline contact with journalists on principle. But that hasn't kept some from trying. While most attempts to reach out result in crickets, one Alabama reporter finally got a written response from Lee: his crumpled letters, with "Go away!" scrawled across them.

Connor Sheets, a reporter for Al.com wrote: 

I hoped she would confirm that she is in fact lucid and fully in control of the destiny of Go Set a Watchman...I hoped she would help clear up all the questions the world has been waiting to have answered about the circumstances of the book's planned release. [...] It appears that Nelle, as her friends call her, is very much with it, that she is still lucid and that her acerbic, press-averse side is fully intact

To Kill a Mockingbird Now Offered in an Enhanced eBook Edition

HarperCollins has published an enhanced eBook edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

The company released the normal eBook To Kill a Mockingbird eBook in July, 2014. The enhancement features on this digital book include a radio interview with Lee, footage from the 1962 film adaptation, audiobook clips performed by Sissy Spacek.

 There will be snippets from the Hey Boo documentary with appearances from Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brokaw, and Anna Quindlen.

According to The Associated Press, “HarperCollins spokeswoman Tina Andreadis says the new Mockingbird edition had received 6,500 pre-orders, far more than for the usual ‘enhanced’ book. She says the publisher has sold 80,000 copies of the regular eBook, a figure comparable to print sales.

Total worldwide sales exceed 30 million copies since the book’s 1960 release. Both eBook editions are priced at $8.99.

To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American Literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.

Take a Chance and Read a Banned or Challenged Book to Celebrate Banned Book Week September 21 to 27

My favorite banned book is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  That's correct; one of the great books of the world was, in fact, banned.  Banned Books Week (BBW) is coming up next week and the American Booksellers Foundation For Free Expression is encouraging booksellers, librarians, authors, publishers and teachers to get involved.

Last year, the "Captain Underpants" series of children's books by Dav Pilkey was the most-challenged book of 2013.  Rounding out the top five were Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye," Sherman Alexie's "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," "Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, and "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins.

Those five and more were challenged in 2013 by people or groups who sought to have them banned from libraries, schools or other institutions for being offensive because of language or unsuitability for a particular age or religious group; for drug, alcohol or smoking references; racism; nudity; violence; sexually explicit scenes or other reasons.

The theme of this year’s event, which runs September 21-27, is the censorship of graphic novels and comic books. Booksellers are encouraged to promote specific banned titles. Here is more information on how booksellers can participate:

Booksellers have always played a key role Banned Books Week by creating displays that show customers that some of their favorite books are under attack. For the second year, ABFFE and Ingram Content Group are making it easy for booksellers to mount their displays by distributing a free promotional kit that contains everything they need. To qualify, booksellers choose 30 or more titles from 450 banned and challenged titles listed on Ingram’s iPage. They also receive additional discounts on initial and subsequent orders.

This author urges you to buy a banned book and give it a read.  A democracy such as ours has no place for the banning of books.  Yes, it is a parent's purview to help a child make good choices; banning books in a wholesale manner is not a thing that should be condoned in the United States.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Young Adult or Adult Fiction and Does it Matter?

Harper Lee's classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, is an American classic.  It is part of the fabric, the persona of this nation.  When, dear reader, did you first experience Ms. Lee's book?

Harper Lee
Rob Carr (AP Photo)

In Marja Mills’ The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee, the reclusive author of American essential To Kill a Mockingbird talks more freely than she has previously about her life through her friendship with Mills, a journalist from The Chicago Tribune.  The book, however, is unauthorized.  Ms. Lee states:

As long as I am alive, any book purporting to be with my cooperation is a falsehood.

Mills recorded a conversation with Lee who wrote: “She said she felt lucky Mockingbird was published when it was. Much later, and it might have been classified as young adult fiction and never reached the audience, and all the adults, it did.”

Young adult fiction has been a hot topic lately, with the success of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars reaching a mainstream audience through things like a New Yorker profile and a hit movie adaptation. 

If To Kill a Mockingbird had been released even ten years later, it probably would have been sold as a kids’ book.  If it were released now, there’s a chance it would even be marketed as middle grade. In fact, Scout, the narrator is looking back on her life as a ten-year-old child.

Print or ebooks--or Both?

For those of us in this writing racket, the discourse on print vs eBooks will not subside.  Enthusiasts on both sides of the issue are always willing to defend their positions without wavering.  The majority of authors that I have talked to feel there is a place for both delivery systems.

In fact, within the past week, Harper Lee, author of the evergreen children's novels, To Kill a Mockingbird has given permission for the book to be released in eBook form.

Below are some interesting statistics concerning the rise of eBooks.  Have a look.

According to the Association of American Publishers (AAP) StatShot report for the first month of 2014, publishers saw total trade eBook sales increase 12.8 percent compared to the prior year.

The report looked at net revenues for 1218 publishers in January 2014. The AAP also revealed that the Children’s and Young Adult category grew by 65.1 percent in eBooks and 53.7 percent in hardcovers during the month. Check it out, “The entire C/YA category, all formats, grew by +43.7% vs the previous year.”

The AAP chart embedded below shows total net revenue for January 2014 versus January 2013 broken out by category.

Before They Were Famous: The Strangest Jobs of Six Literary Luminaries

Everybody has to make a living, even writers.  Here are some interesting jobs by famous authors before they became famous.  I am convinced, though, that each of these people gained insight about the human condition while fulfilling their jobs. 

Kurt Vonnegut managed America’s first Saab dealership in Cape Cod during the late 1950s, a job he joked about in a 2004 essay: “I now believe my failure as a dealer so long ago explains what would otherwise remain a deep mystery: Why the Swedes have never given me a Nobel Prize for Literature.”

 John Steinbeck took on a range of odd occupations before 
earning enough to work as a full-time writer. Among his day jobs: apprentice painter, fruit picker, estate caretaker and Madison Square Garden construction worker.

 Stephen King served as a janitor for a high school while struggling to get his fiction published. His time wheeling the cart through the halls inspired him to write the opening girls’ locker room scene in Carrie, which would become his breakout novel.

 Harper Lee worked as a reservation clerk for Eastern Air Lines for more than eight years, writing stories in her spare time. This all changed when a friend offered her a Christmas gift of one year’s wages, with the note, “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please.” She wrote the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird within the year.

 Before his writing career took off, William Faulkner also worked for the Postal Service, as postmaster at the University of Mississippi. In his resignation note, he neatly summarized the struggle of art and commerce faced by many authors: “As long as I live under the capitalist system I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.”

 T.S. Eliot worked as a banker, serving as a clerk for Lloyds Bank of London for eight years. The job must have been a bummer—he composed passages of The Waste Land while walking to work each da Sometimes, an odd job can actually lead to opportunity. Poet Vachel Lindsay was interrupted as he dined at a hotel restaurant in Washington, D.C., by a busboy who handed him some sheets of poetry. At first irritated by the young man, Lindsay was quickly impressed by the writing. When he asked, “Who wrote this?” the busboy replied, “I did.” Langston Hughes was about to get his big break

Why the Perennial Interest in Coming of Age Novels?

What is a coming of age novel, and why is it appealing to so many people?  Let me answer the first part of the question with a question. 

Who doesn't enjoy looking back, at least with a passing glimpse, to our more callow days filled with emotion, hormones, embarrassment, and lots of learning about life?  

Although perusing those earlier years can be a painful experience, for most people it was a time of self-awareness and growth. And it certainly can be again, if we only take the time to revisit those days from the safety of adulthood.

On a personal note, I've been immersed in writing my own coming of age novel.  The protagonist is a new teenager who has to find her way through a morass not of her own making.  Hopefully, the reader will long for her to emerge from the journey as a whole and happy and more mature young person, ready to face anything that life sends her way.

 The effect of my writing this novel is palpable.  I find myself dredging up memories that I would have thought long gone.  My dreams are full of incidents that happened to me years ago, some good and some not so good.  Long forgotten teachers and incidents and memories of home drift through my sleeping mind like ghosts.  It has been quite a journey of my own, an unintended consequence of delving into my own coming of age experience. 

I have included a few coming of age books that I find to be of note. The time tested novel, of course, is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  Scout morphs from childhood innocence to the realization of good and evil in people. It is a masterpiece of the first water.

 Have a look.  See what you think.  If you have any to add to the list, please mention them in the Comments Section of this post.